It’s broken, so fix it. Unless its football, in which case, don’t

 

 

• “All clubs play with the same ball” up to a point
• The tragedy is Arsenal might just give in and do what their critics want

By Tony Attwood

It must be patently obvious if you have ever read more than a couple of sentences of my ramblings, that I argue that football journalism is a malign force which is damaging the game.  These journalists have a view of football that they put across as being right, obvious, to the point, clear, undeniable and most damagingly, so obvious that it is not open to criticism or even debate..

So clear and undeniable in fact that when someone disagrees with them they either ignore that or they call the disagreement a “rant” thus in one word dismissing its validity without actually exploring what is being said.  Facts are ignored, trivia comes to the fore, and opinions are expressed as if they were undeniable reality.

Thus Ange Postcoglou says what he thinks and it is reported as “an extraordinary rant.”  And in this case it is of course also an attempt by the media to hammer home their nationalistic vision that foreigners don’t understand the game that the English invented.

It is in fact a trend within football journalism that has become obsessive, the word “rant” to describe someone’s exposition of a situation is now endemic.   There’s one in the Telegraph for example: “Ange Postecoglou in extraordinary rant: Why will English people not stand up against change?”

Tottenham’s Australian manager lambasts nation who are ‘custodians of the game’ for not fighting against VAR and rise of technology.  And it is greeted with the standard media response.

But in fact it is the Telegraph that has launched an “extraordinary rant”.  And the media get away with it because everything in football is seen as an isolated event rather than part of something widespread.

So for example, if the water pressure in my taps is down it might be a problem with one tap, the plumbing in my entire house, or the fact that the pipes connecting the pumping centre to the villages are too narrow for the number of houses now wanting water.  In short there’s nothing much that can be done until the water authority fixes the issue by installing new pipes.  Thus three possible explanations.

But in football every problem always has one clearly defined source, and anyone who suggests otherwise is having a rant. 

As a result the failure of Arsenal to win a match and win a trophy is often reported as something that is considered as if it is a leaking tap – something that can be fixed with one simple adjustment or replacement, which in the case of football the correspondent (unemployed by a club) can see but the manager (employed by the club) for some season can’t see.

And yet, if one is logical, there is no simple answer to winning the league (or the other major trophies) because if there were, all the other clubs would be doing it.

Clubs get to win trophies under the current structure of the competitions, either by by-passing all the financial rules, and then claiming the rules are not legal and so don’t apply to them (as Manchester City have done) or by the luck of having all the right players together at the right time, and with very, very few of them being injured or losing their form, or by having suitable backups for when injuries do take place.

Now the suitable backup issue is one that itself is fraught with difficulties. as players like to play, and so the amount of money that they expect for not playing can be just as high as that for the regular players – which means only the wealthiest of clubs can afford to bring in a full squad double squad of 25 players and update the squad with a few replacements at each window, and keep everyone happy whether they are playing or not.

All this however is ignored by the media who present football to their viewers and readers as being a very simple affair, so simple in fact that the average ordinary journalist can understand far more than the average manager.  

The “Arsenal need a centre forward” argument is a case in point.  It has the attractiveness of being very simple to say, very easy to understand, and at the same time casts the current manager in a bad light for simply refusing to see the obvious which everyone else can see.

Indeed so obvious is the case that no contrary view is put forward because the evidence is never considered and Arteta is called either stupid or obdurate for not seeing what the rest of the world can see.  A top goalscorer would solve all the problems.

Yet behind that utter simplicity, to which journalists habitually reduce the world, are a few problems.   First having a top scorer alone does not guarantee success.

Yes it is true that Salah is the top scorer and his team is top of the league, but he was top scorer in 2021/2 and Liverpool came second (which apparently is failure, for it if were not, Arsenal’s second place in each of the last two seasons and the model that was used to achieve it would be noted as part of the “we need a number 9” debate.)

Or what about 2020/21.  Harry Kane was top scorer.  Tottenham came 7th.    In 2019/20 the top scorer was Vardy.  Leicester came fifth.

So this idea that a club with the top scoring striker will win the league is something that has emerged since 2021/22 and of course is part of the current ManC profile.

But in all this we should not forget that ManC’s profile is to spend money. And we should also remember that quite a few top price players don’t work out.

Buying a goal-scoring centre forward could unbalance the Arsenal team rather than take us back to the 91 league goals scored last season, without a “proper centre forward”.